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Rumor: Steve Jobs says iWeb and MobileMe hosting are going away

by Steven Sande Jun 12th 2011 at 10:00PM

Those of us with a vested interest in iWeb have been perplexed by the lack of interest shown by Apple in the former iLife web design app. Couple this with the pending demise of MobileMe on June 30, 2012, and that confusion turns into concern. MacRumors featured a post a few hours ago about an iWeb/MobileMe fan who was so concerned about the lack of iWeb love coming from Apple that the user sent Steve Jobs an email.

In the email the iWeb user asked, "Will I need to find an alternative website builder and someone to host my sites?" The alleged response from the CEO of Apple: "Yep."

iWeb's discontinuation wouldn't be completely surprising. When iLife '11 debuted late last year, the lack of a new version of iWeb frustrated a number of users. When iCloud was announced last week, there was no indication that websites created with iWeb and hosted on MobileMe would have a migration path to the new world of Apple cloud computing.

There are many free website alternatives to a MobileMe-hosted iWeb site, such as WordPress.com, Blogger, Tumblr, and Posterous; paid options include Squarespace, Drupal Gardens and hundreds more. In addition, Facebook is an excellent alternative for both individuals or companies who just want to create a simple web presence to inform friends or customers of what's going on. If your needs are for a straightforward yet powerful WYSIWIG web authoring environment, both RapidWeaver and Sandvox deliver much of iWeb's power with more flexibility for non-MobileMe hosting.

For those who still want to have their websites designed in iWeb and hosted somewhere other than on MobileMe, you might want to start looking for low-cost web hosting soon.



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33 Comments

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vishwas sharma

I like this post very much. What application do you use to design and update your websites? I would be launching a new product in few months.

July 14 2011 at 6:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
forwardesign

I use Roxer.com tho it's not your typical framework, it is easy to just point to your images (local or web) type in your text, add videos and other widgets. Lex is working hard to get this site out of beta but it may be a while. Also, you can point your domain name to it easily. Get it while it's free!

July 10 2011 at 4:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Powen - Jimdo.com

I thought the way iWeb's possible discontinuation is being handled / announced is leaving a lot to be desired. We've been talking about this a bit internally at work, and we decided we'd like to help anyone that would like to get their website off iWeb and onto Jimdo's online website builder.

Jimdo's based on the same widget building block and drag-and-drop ideas as iWeb is, so the transition won't be hard. Plus, once you're migrated, you can enjoy using a service/software that is actually being updated and is the main focus of the company making it!

More info and help on migrating here: http://www.jimdo.com/2011/06/14/no-room-in-apple-s-spaceship-for-iweb-take-off-with-jimdo/

June 14 2011 at 3:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bidione

Good to hear there are a lot of WYSIWYG editors around I could go with and most of them come with lots of more or less beautiful templates. But what's the best choice if I want to "import" and re-create an existing website just the way it currently looks? Don`t need any fancy templates and don't want to be locked into one. I want to re-build my website the way it looks now! I was looking at a couple of editors, including RapidWeaver and Sandvox, but none of them seems to be able to import the code of my current site and let me continue working on it. Any suggestions what works?

June 13 2011 at 11:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
bjbjohnson

I tried iWeb once, didn't really care for it. Somehow I don't think there's a market for it anyway, which is why Apple killed it.

June 13 2011 at 10:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hervieuxconsulting

Back in the late 90's early 2000's before switching to Apple, I was on Windows and used Front Page as it was easy, quick, and I was guaranteed my website looked good. FP went away and I had to find some other alternatives. I lost traffic as my site was down (every hosting provider turned off office extensions at once), and I was paying $24 / month for ad-free hosting. I then lost traffic because I lost many features in open source editors and the site would not render correctly on most browsers. I was not going to pay the Price for MS's web essentials that was more expensive and had less features. Since then I come to love iWeb. I have 2 sites built in it, and also have one of them hosted on MobileMe. I turned many people on to iWeb and they built sites. This is sad sad news. Since I cannot afford Adobe Illustrator, Indesign, Dreamweaver, I am looking for alternatives. I need something WYSIWYG and not spending a lot of time in HTML, JavaScript, or CSS. I am also in need of something that has more professional looking templates with drop down menus for PROPER navigation. As you will see with my current site - it is ugly, but I had to choose a closest theme without looking like it was a site for the teenage skateboarder crowd.

http://hervieuxconsulting.com

Any suggestions? Not sure I really am interested in SandVox - looks like it may have goofy themes as well, I heard RapidWeaver is not that easy to work with - and you will spend much time coding for a less than desirable site. I am also not going to spend the enourmous amount of money for a web designer, my cash flow does not allow for that right now (unemployed for a year, just starting this business). I also do not like the editors that hosting companies provide. I need to keep my site local. One of my early clients chose a hosting company's templates and edited using their tools. The company went under and he lost his site and could not get the webpages back; meaning he had to start all over.

I also do not want to spend the time with having my information spread out. blogs under wordpress, photos under something else, movies under something else. Facebook is ok, but you can't have a custom site and people have to be a member and like your page.

HELP!!!!

June 13 2011 at 9:19 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to hervieuxconsulting's comment
EWG Gestalt

I've used RapidWeaver to create two different web sites. I would recommend adding the "Stacks" add-on to the package. Between the two, you should have almost everything you need to create a fairly robust site. Minimal knowledge of HTML coding is required: for instance, I was able to include a "web form" that visitors could use to register or ask questions without looking once at the HTML coding.

You can download and try out RapidWeaver for free for 30 days (although you're limited to 3 pages per project under the trial, if I remember correctly). So far, though, I think it's been more than worth the purchase price for me.

June 13 2011 at 9:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
fultonkbd

Freeway from Softpress is a viable option for someone who doesn't want to do a lot of code work. I've used in the past to set up simple sites.

June 13 2011 at 10:04 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Aargh-a-Knot

I'm glad to see iWeb go, for while it was fairly simple to use, the code it produced was horrific, and making updates to the site was near impossible without the original files.

June 13 2011 at 7:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Aargh-a-Knot's comment
mspence

Hi. Clever user-name! What application do you use to design and update your websites? I am probably going to be in the market for a new application soon.

June 13 2011 at 8:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mspence's comment
Aargh-a-Knot

I simply use a text editor (BBEdit) and a browser (Chrome), with a little more help from {LESS.app}.
WYSIWYG editors can wind up slowing you down once you actually learn CSS and HTML/PHP. I have built a framework and CMS around Wordpress, so the content itself is updated through a custom WP WYSIWYG editor (TinyMCE with hand-rolled extensions).

iWeb was OK for a one-off site for someone with little or no coding knowledge who wanted to keep it that way. You could quickly make a site that looked decent on the front end, but if you care at all about web standards and performance, it's not even an option.

June 13 2011 at 9:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down
mspence

Well, this is really disappointing news. I have been creating a website for my class that features interactive versions of some of the texts we read, and now I will not be able to use it. I have looked at Rapid Weaver before, but it was not as straight-forward as I need (I do not know anything about code). Do you folks have suggestions for what I should do next?

June 13 2011 at 7:38 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Christian Yates

Note - you can use DrupalGardens for free as well. Paid tiers kick in when you want things like a custom domain, support, more storage, etc.

June 13 2011 at 7:05 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
BlankaK

You guys should not be surprised. You predicted the end of the world wide web 2 months ago:
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/15/is-apple-killing-the-world-wide-web/1

June 13 2011 at 5:22 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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